Use of polarization contrast for determination of dimensions of the contour of a sessile melt drop

We can improve the measurement accuracy of dimensions of the contour of a sessile melt drop by using polarization contrast of the thermal radiation from different points of the surface of the drop. The improvement of accuracy is achieved by elimination of blurring of the contour of the image edge in the course of detection. The widespread method for measurements of shadow image with illumination, which uses the maximum of the derivative of the transition function (the Laplace function), is physically groundless. By using the maximum of the degree of polarization, we can eliminate some measurement errors. On the basis of the experimental results, we can estimate the efficiency of the method including dependences of the results on the melt temperature.